In a wireless communication system, a wireless device (e.g., a cellular phone) may transmit data to and receive data from a base station for bi-directional communication. For data transmission, the wireless device modulates outgoing data onto a radio frequency (RF) carrier signal and generates an RF modulated signal that is more suitable for transmission via a wireless channel. The wireless device then transmits the RF modulated signal via a reverse link (or uplink) to the base station. For data reception, the wireless device receives an RF modulated signal transmitted via a forward link (or downlink) by the base station. The wireless device then conditions and digitizes the received signal to obtain samples and further processes the samples to recover the incoming data sent by the base station.
The wireless device utilizes various local oscillator (LO) signals for frequency upconversion and downconversion and various clock signals for digital signal processing. The LO signals and clock signals may need to be at precise frequencies in order to achieve good performance. To obtain the required frequency precision, a temperature compensated crystal oscillator (TCXO) or a voltage controlled TCXO (VCTCXO) is often used to generate a reference signal having a frequency that is compensated over a specified temperature range. The compensation is based on a small number of discrete temperature values and is thus not very accurate when those exact temperatures are not occurring. This reference signal is then used to generate the LO signals and clock signals, which would then have the frequency precision of the reference signal. However, the use of a TCXO or VCTCXO or a heating element increases design complexity as well as cost for the wireless device. Moreover, such solutions lack the resolution needed for accuracy over a wide range of temperatures. In addition, the frequency error is not provided to the overall system, but rather the compensated signal is provided to the system. Accordingly, the system cannot act based on the frequency error.